Cycle [C] 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy)

 Acts 5:12-16; Rev. 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19; Jn. 20:19-31

 The readings for this Sunday are about God’s Mercy, the necessity for trusting Faith, and our need for God’s forgiveness of our sins. The Gospel presents Jesus as soon as he walks into the room where the disciples were, he shows them his hands and his side. He shows them the wounds of his crucifixion. Thomas tells other disciples: “I won’t believe it until I see and touch the wounds.” He does see and probably touched the wounds, and that leads him to exclaim “My Lord and my God!” Jesus’ wounds are his identity card. They shout out to us that God’s mercy is more powerful than death.   

All this is tied in with the special feast we’re celebrating today as Divine Mercy Sunday. Mercy is when God’s love meets our brokenness. We all need God’s mercy. And we all need to see God’s mercy. As Pope Francis, paraphrasing Pope Benedict XVI, once said, “The name of God is mercy.”

And the wounds of Christ, visible for all eternity, are the vivid reminder of God’s mercy. It’s not enough to know abstractly that the name of God is mercy. We need to see it. We need to be reminded of it. So we can say that the mercy of God comes to us through Christ’s wounds. 

 

Whenever Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection they had difficulty in recognizing him. So he shows them his wounds. There are a few things that are believed to be the characteristics of a resurrected body, which can be inferred from the scripture and the observations made from the resurrected body of Christ. All our bodies will rise only at the final coming of Christ. These observations of the conditions of resurrected bodies do not apply to those already dead right now, except Jesus and Mary who have their bodies already risen.

First characteristic is:

1. Identity – The very same body that falls in death will rise to be glorified; we will not get a different body. St. Thomas Aquinas says: For, we cannot call it resurrection unless the soul return to the same body, since resurrection is a second rising, and the same thing rises that falls: if it be not the same body which the soul resumes, it will not be a resurrection, but rather the assuming of a new body (Suppl. Q 79.1).

This does not mean that the body will necessarily be identical in every way. As St. Paul says, our current bodies are like the seed. A seed does not have all the fully developed qualities of the mature plant, but it does have them in seed form. For in the sowing of grain, the grain sown and the grain that is born thereof are neither identical, nor of the same condition, since it was first sown without a husk, yet is born with one: and the body will rise again identically the same, but of a different condition, since it was mortal and will rise in immortality. (Ibid).

2. Integrity – We will retain all of the parts of our current bodies. This means every physical part of our body, even the less noble parts (e.g., intestines). It is clear from the Gospel that Jesus ate, even after the resurrection. He ate a fish while in their company (Luke 24:43). He also ate with the disciples in Emmaus (Luke 24:30). He ate breakfast with them at the lake shore (Jn 21:12). Hence it follows that even less noble parts of our body will rise, for eating and digestion are still functions of a resurrected body. St. Thomas argues that food will not be necessary to the resurrected body (Suppl. 81.4), but it is clearly possible to eat, for Christ demonstrated it.

3. Quality – What about age, gender, and other physical characteristics? Our bodies will be youthful and will retain our original gender.

Paul says in the letter to the Philippians (3:19) that our glorified bodies will be conformed to Christ’s glorified body. Jesus’ body rose at the age of 30-33 years.

St Augustine also speculates that because Christ rose again of youthful age (about 30), others also will rise again of a youthful age (cf De Civ. Dei xxii).

St. Thomas further notes, Man will rise again without any defect of human nature, because as God founded human nature without a defect, even so will He restore it without defect.

(Now human nature has a twofold defect. First, because it has not yet attained to its ultimate perfection. Secondly, because it has already gone back from its ultimate perfection. The first defect is found in children, they long to grow to be youth,  the second in the aged, they long to be young again: and consequently in each of these human nature will be brought by the resurrection to the state of its ultimate perfection which is in the youthful age, at which the movement of growth terminates, and from which the movement of decrease begins (Suppl. Q. 81.1).

Further, since gender is part of human perfection, all will rise according to their current gender. Other qualities such as height and hair color will also be retained, it would seem, since this diversity is part of man’s perfection.

4. Impassability – We will be immune from death and pain. Scripture states this clearly:

The dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality (1 Cor 15:52-53).

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away (Rev 21:4).

5. Subtlety – Our bodies will be free from the things that restrain them now. Subtlety refers to the capacity of the resurrected body to be completely conformed to the capacities of the soul.  (Suppl. Q. 83.1).

In my current lowly body, though I may wish to go to India in a few moments my body cannot pull that off. My current body cannot instantly be somewhere else on the planet. Now the soul is united to body not only as its form, but also as its mover; and in both ways the glorified body must be most perfectly subject to the glorified soul.

6. Clarity – The glory of our souls will be visible in our bodies. We will be beautiful and radiant. It is written in the Scriptures: The just shall shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Mat 13:43). The body in sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory (1 Cor 15:43).

In conclusion we can say that our resurrected bodies will be same yet different. That was the reason why the disciples always had doubt about the identity of the risen Jesus. That is why he showed them his wounds which he preserves for us in his resurrected body to show how much he loves us. Those wounds of Jesus tell us loud and clear of our sins and how merciful and forgiving our God is.

The divine mercy picture shows the grace flowing out from his wounds. And when we bring him our wounds in the sacrament of confession, our very wounds become an entrance point for his merciful love. And we experience the peace and the joy that Christ wants to give us.